The Happening
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Spyglass Entertainment, 2008
By Madeleine Sims-Fewer
The trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s newest thriller was pleasantly intriguing. With haunting imagery and a strong cast, what could go wrong? I had also heard that this latest venture was free of any groan-inducing twists that you saw coming an hour before Shyamalan intended. Could this be the film that lends mortar to a crumbling career? Sadly not.
After seeing the film in it’s entirety, I would hazard a guess that writer/director/producer Shyamalan wrote a rough draft, intending to hire researchers, story editors, and all the people that could bring it up to the standard that a million dollar movie should rise to. But then he got a strong case of Lay-zee, figured he could do his own research, on the web, and you know, what’s really the point of a casting director anyhow? Since M. Night was also the producer, there was no one to stop him. So we arrived at The Happening, whose title is incredibly fitting if, like me, you are a fan of irony.
The opening scene is more hilarious than haunting: Central Park comes to a standstill and a young college student stabs herself with her own hairpin, forcing her friend to react with what could only be described as boredom. And so begins a film in which the actors seem to have less of a clue as to what they are reacting to than the audience does. As chaos ensues, we focus on the few central characters who will be followed throughout the film. Mark Wahlberg plays science teacher Elliot Moore, who never uses his knowledge to any effect throughout the film, which prompts me to believe that he could have been a garbage man without changing the script much. As soon as the words ‘terrorist attack’ are uttered, he leaves the city with his scattered, troubled wife (Zooey Deschanel), a fellow teacher (John Leguizamo), and his daughter.
After the rambling plot hints at an affair between Elliot’s wife and a coworker, and bumps blindly around for a while, we arrive at the cause of the attacks. The plants on earth are releasing a poison that induces a suicidal state in any human who breaths it in [Editor's note: normally I would consider this a spoiler, but I loathe Shyamalan enough to let it slide]. Why plants wouldn’t simply release a poison that kills humans directly is beyond me, but it does make for some very funny shots of people starting lawn mowers and lying in front of them, or tempting lions with their limbs.
The fact that the wind is the main villain in this film was decidedly problematic and not in the least bit scary. Coupled with close-ups of Wahlberg and Deschanel in which they seem to be searching for some scrap of direction rather than a place to hide, this film was hilarious for all the wrong reasons. Wahlberg and Deschanel, who are best when in comedic roles, suffer hugely from the lacklustre script, and resort to making wide-eyed, nostril-flaring stares.
The script, which is stunted from lack of research, becomes preposterous in its placement of plot devices, intended to forward the action (such as a conveniently-placed radio they just happen to find in a field), and its poor excuse for a subplot in the love scenes between the two protagonists, which are distracting at best, and for the most part utterly hokey.
Nonsensical parallels are drawn between the human deaths and the bee crisis, and everything is sloppily summed up as ‘something we will never truly understand’. Something I will never truly understand is how M. Night Shyamalan still has a job.
Man, I don’t get why people have such a hate-on for Shamalingion. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t like The Happening and I thought it fell short in pretty much every way, but Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were awesome movies, and even though Signs and The Village and Lady in The Water had some problems, I still think the guy does a great job of creating a state of tension with a really interesting minimalistic style.
Once again though, not so much in The Happening, it pretty much sucked. I thought the concept was really good, but it fell short in the execution. It probably wasn’t smart to make the ‘villain’ in the film completely invisible.
Also, he still has a job because all his movies are profitable; some of them insanely so.
I agree with you Madeleine- his time is up. His stuff isn’t even scary now, just silly.
I really enjoyed the editors note.
I’m with you Caesar. I really don’t get why people hate the guy so much (in fact, I wrote an entire article about it: http://thereeladdict.com/in-defense-of-m-night-shyamalan/). Yes, THE HAPPENING was his worst movie to date, but I think he – unlike the Michael Bay’s out there who you would think would be more deserving of such vitrolic hate – has a very unique, lovely visual style. Even if what he is shooting isn’t interesting, he has an assured sense of mise-en-scene that is distinctly old-fashioned in its deliberateness and pacing. If anything, that reason enough to not kick the poor guy when he’s half dead on the ground.
Ha ha, “half dead on the ground.”
In his other films, I’ve always been amazed at how he could create interest or tension with such simple direction and shooting angles. I’ve caught myself watching a number of scenes in a state of tension and then going, “Wait a minute, this is just two guys talking, what am I so worked up about?”
I hope he manages to churn out something good again in the future…it’s totally weird that he’s directing a movie for Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of my favourite cartoons of all time. He really doesn’t seem right for that, but I guess we’ll see…
I can see him pulling THE LAST AIRBENDER off though. I think it could prove to be good because it’s not an original idea of his own and yet it speaks to a lot of sensibilities and his creative interests. So at least I think the film/show’s themses should be in safe hands. Beyond that, we’ll just have to wait and see.